Blue state's margin won't last without DFL focus on all of it

Hillary Clinton showed Tuesday that a Democrat can win a Minnesota election by prevailing in only nine of 87 counties. That's a path to a statewide victory that I hope DFLers resolve to never tread again.

Minnesota extended its long blue presidential string Tuesday to 15-and-1 since 1960, bucking the Trump tide that swept the rest of the Midwest, save for Illinois. Clinton garnered only a 1.5-percentage-point margin of victory in the state — but that was a nearly 43,000-vote advantage, enough to turn the heads of DFL seekers of statewide office in 2018.

I'm here to urge them: Turn away, quickly.

Replicating Clinton's geographic appeal might suffice to win more elections. But it would be terrible for Minnesota in the long run. It would continue to drive a wedge between the state's urban places (Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and, increasingly, Rochester) and the rest of the state. And that wedge is jamming the gears of state government, to the whole state's detriment.

DFLers should hold true to their party's very name. They should aim to win elections in both metro and Greater Minnesota.

So should Republicans, I'll hasten to add. Last week's election allowed Republicans to boast about suburban pickups in state House races, in Edina, the Arden Hills area and two in Dakota County. To those who boast: Until you're fielding for-real candidates in Minneapolis and St. Paul, you're not really trying to be a statewide party.

Defensive DFLers will huff that their party retained (albeit narrowly) three Greater Minnesota congressional seats in this election. That was no mean feat. They'll also point to the blue blotches that remain in non-metro territory on the new state House map and saying "See — we're still competing outstate!"

To them, too, I offer the words of state Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, who until Tuesday bore the title Senate Majority Leader. Though saddened and shell-shocked Wednesday afternoon, Bakk spoke cogently at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs about his party's need to reconnect with the people of rural Minnesota.

"Democrats have a messaging problem in rural Minnesota," he said. "Rural Minnesota is not that much different from when Rudy Perpich was governor. Remember, Rudy ran on that slogan, 'Jobs, jobs, jobs.' That's still what people care about. That speaks to the security of their families. I think we've lost that message."

Bakk noted that Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan eked out a 2,000-vote victory in northeastern Minnesota's Eighth District, even as Trump was running up a 15-percentage-point lead over Clinton there.

"Rick Nolan talked about jobs. Every commercial I saw on those Range TV stations was about mining and manufacturing and jobs. The voters rewarded him for that."

That bread-and-butter message created the Farmer-Labor Party after World War I and built the DFL Party after World War II. During the 1970s — the Minnesota Miracle years — the party also came to stand for higher quality and regional equity in public education. Both of those messages have been diluted in the last several decades. The DFL became the party of racial justice, women's rights, LGBT rights, environmental protection, gun control, a strong economic safety net, light-rail transit and a big (often clunky) bureaucracy to manage it all.

A DFL message about shoring up public education in rural areas with declining population would be particularly welcome, he said. "People are very worried in many rural areas about their schools. You are not going to be recruiting economic development to your town if you have a lousy or no school. It is just critical infrastructure. And there's only so far you can go with school consolidation.

"We are losing pupil units. We pay based on pupil units. … That formula isn't working. Small schools can't make it anymore. Our funding mechanism needs a change." He's working on a bill with that in mind.

A week ago, such a pronouncement from Bakk would have been an agenda-setter for the 2017 session. Now that he's no longer majority leader, it's a nice idea floating in the Capitol ether with no clear path for enactment.

And yet: On Thursday, Bakk's caucusmates tapped him for another term as their leader. He remains a voice of influence in his party. He's in a position to convince DFLers to make rural school improvements a 2017-18 theme song, and sing it all the way to the next election.